This is my first year with bees. My question is when should I extract my honey supers? I was originally planning on extracting around the end of August, but I recently heard that you should extract in July. As long as I leave enough food for the bees, shouldn't August give me more time to have the bees fill my top honey super?
I take mine off right before the goldenrod flow (Mid to end of August). We have so much goldenrod around here that they always are able to stuff the hives prior to winter.
Do you have full supers now? Then you can take them off if you want. Do you have more empty supers to put on now? Then you can leave them for a bit and extract all at once. Do you have SHB? Then take them off. Period. Open space and you will loose your hive to SHB as they slime up everything.
I extract when I find a fully capped super. The first one this year was April. I hope to get another or two in Sept. or before.
We pulled frames last weekend. Left some that were not fully capped. Will check again this weekend and replace with "wet" supers.
Since everyone is in different places, the answer to your question is that you take off honey (harvest it) when frames are fully capped. So unless your bees have completed the honey process from nectar to capping, you leave the supers on the hive.
Second, you always leave enough for the bees to make it through the winter. That is different in different areas. Here in Atlanta the bees need a deep and a super of honey to make it through or as in my case, three full medium boxes to make it through the winter.
As for your top super, it will only get filled if there is nectar to fill it. Here in Atlanta our honey flow is over so an empty super is likely to remain so whether I harvest now or not.
Hope that helps,
Linda T in Atlanta
I have always taken my honey supers off as soon as they are capped. I do some cut comb so I like the real white wax. Leaving capped supers on, the cappings can get "travel stained" and darken some. Also, leaving capped suppers on you always run the risk of them getting robbed out.
When I extract is a different issue. If you are doing crush and strain, you can do a frame or two at a time, a super at a time, or however much you have time to work when you want to work it.
If you are using an extractor, you may want to wait until you have taken off all you know you are going to get and extract everything at once, so you only have to clean the extractor one time.
If I don't have time to extract, I have kept several supers of honey at a time in a chest freezer until I had time to work them the following winter.
I like to wait for cold weather to set in as I can better assess what to leave them and I can steal supers without having to drive the bees out of them as they are clustered down below.